Hindsight of better/comparable players for each draft pick (I may have missed a few)
...yeah, I'm bored
2004
97. Johan Franzen
127. Ryan Callahan (as much as I like the guy, you can't argue Franzen's playoff numbers...we should have had both)
128. Evan McGrath
134. Kris Versteeg
150. Mikhail Grabovski
Nothing too bad for the rest of the draft.
2005
19. Jakub Kindl
21. Tuukka Rask
24. TJ Oshie
33. James Neal
35. Marc-Edouard Vlasic
41. Ondrej Pavelec
42. Justin Abdelkader
44. Paul Stastny (this one hurts)
51. Mason Raymond
62. Kristopher Letang (this too...)
72. Jonathan Quick
79. Cody Franson
80. Alex Rappold
85. Ben Bishop
87. Marc-Andre Gragnani
96. Chris Butler
101. Jared Boll
103. Mattias Ritola
105. Keith Yandle
108. Niklas Hjalmarsson
132. Darren Helm (perfect pick!)
137. Johan Ryno
142. Nathan Gerbe (I thought we were the ones to take chances on small players)
175. Juho Mielonen
190. Matt D'Agostini
214. Bretton Stamler
222. Kyle Cumiskey
230. Patric Hornqvist (last pick...Detroit style)
2006
41. Cory Emmerton
44. Nikolai Kulemin
46. Jhonas Enroth
47. Shawn Matthias
50. Milan Lucic (maybe we'd trade him for Bertuzzi anyways)
62. **** Axelsson
63. Jamie McBain
69. Steve Mason
71. Brad Marchand
72. Cal Clutterbuck
92. Daniel Larsson
99. James Reimer
112. Matt Beleskey
161. Viktor Stalberg
182. Jan Mursak
189. Derek Dorsett
196. Benn Ferriero
212. Logan Pyett (third-to-last pick)
2007
27. Brendan Smith
43. P.K. Subban (I prefer Smith though)
88. Joakim Andersson
97. Linus Omark
116. Keith Aulie
129. Jamie Benn
148. Randy Cameron
168. Carl Hagelin
178. Zach Torquato
194. Carl Gunnarsson
2008
30. Thomas McCollum
31. Jacob Markstrom (ouch...one pick later)
38. Roman Josi
45. Zac Dalpe
51. Derek Stepan
60. Jimmy Hayes
91. Max Nicastro
93. Braden Holtby
121. Gustav Nyquist (looks like he has the best potential)
The picks from now on are too hard to tell.
2009
32. Landon Ferraro
33. Ryan O'Reilly (really big loss here)
35. Kyle Clifford
46. Robin Lehner
60. Tomas Tatar (looks like a good pick)
Rest of the draft is too hard to tell. Need to wait a few more years. Same thing with 2010 and 2011 draft classes.
All in all, we've drafted pretty well since the lockout. Looking back, we've definitely passed on quite a few gritty players for skill players that never panned out though. But, you could just as easily look at it the other way for a lot of teams; they've passed on skilled players for gritty players that never make it to the show.
It's all a crapshoot. But, I like our stable with Nyquist, Tatar, Smith, Jarnkrok, Pulkkinen, etc.
Great list, but it really shows you more success than failure. Really O'Reilly, Lucic, and the Kindl for like five better choices is the only really bad bits. I mean Kindl for Letang would have been an epic improvement. Could you imagine if they traded down and got Neal and Letang with Abs?
You always have to remember any pick changes all the future picks though. Getting Letang might have caused us to pass on Smith. Who knows. I like our prospects, but there were some bad picks. Though show me the GM that gets them all right and I will show you a team that never loses.
